Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves

I graduated college and started my career shortly before the 2008 financial crisis hit. I remember the aftermath and learning about the subprime mortgages that were the primary cause behind it. This book provides an interesting perspective about some of the government officials and company executives dealing with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG.

The book focuses a great deal on both Lehman Brothers and AIG as they were two of the biggest failures leading into the crisis. It does a good job talking about how the CEOs for both Lehman Brothers and AIG both trying to escape the disaster. Neither of them seemed to fully grasp the trouble they were in and neither seemed to be willing to take responsibility for the failures.

The book also looks at Ben Bernanke (US Fed Chairman), Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary), & Timothy Geithner (President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank) and how they reacted to and handled the looming crisis. It talks about their beliefs of no bailouts or rescues to the creation of TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program).

Overall it was an interesting look at one of the greatest economic crises since the Great Depression.